From sunny Dundee on the afternoon of Bonfire night 2012




Good afternoon fellow copyright people

sincere apologies for the delay in posting - thousands of excuses, but now back hoping to build up the blog as an effective way of keeping up to date with all copyright friends throughout the Scottish FE community - and beyond.

Will also be using the blog and Twitter account @copyrightfan to bring you current news and developments in the wonderful world of copyright, principally as it affects Colleges Scotland.

Just a few observations and comments for the moment -

Responses to IPO call for evidence

The Intellectual Property Office has issued the responses to the Hargreaves Commission for responses to the proposals for a Digital Copyright Exchange - I posted comments on behalf of the Scottish FE community, and it is interesting to see the views of some of the licensing agencies who also responded - more information at

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves/hargreaves-copyright/hargreaves-copyright-dce/hargreaves-copyright-dce-response.htm

CLA update - code of conduct issued

Our friends at the CLA have issued a draft code of conduct - it was suggested by the Hargreaves Commission that licensing bodies such as CLA should have a code of conduct - and not before time, in my opinion.  I'm sure we can all find blips and glitches in the CLA's efforts but well done to them for producing theirs - just need to wait for the others now - codes of conduct are all very well, but some of our friendly (and not-so-friendly) collecting agencies are still monopolies and with the exception of CLA and ERA, appear to have no intention of negotiating fees, rights or repertoire with colleges as cliencts - the agencies are likely to see considerable decline in revenues if the projected decline in student numbers comes to fruition - that might make them sit up and take notice - or it might make them even more determined to squeeze as much as possible from the colleges to make up for lost revenues - we must remain vigilant!

Article on Digitital Rights Management

I came across this very interesting article from The Economist - I tweeted the link, but in case you missed it, here it is again -
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21565612-electronic-copyright-laws-are-bugging-readers%E2%80%94and-authors-pick-book
it's a very good article about the avoidance of Digital Rights Management (DRM) as they affect e-books etc - the article mentions Calibre, a piece of software that strips out DRM - not recommended that it is downloaded for college use!

Reply from MPLC

If you have read the latest edition of the Copyright Maze newsletter which I write for the Scottish FE community, you'll have noted that my letter to MPLC on behalf of the colleges was published - their reply came in just after the newsletter was distributed - here is the reply - which is not unexpected, I have to say - and I will be following up a number of the points with the company - I still stand by my original advice that colleges are more than adequately covered for the use of recordings either under the ERA and ERA+ licences and/or Section 34 of the current Copyright Act.




That's it for the moment - I promise I will keep this blog up-to-date - there's still a lot of work to be done in the promotion of copyright education and knowledge in the Scottish FE community - I don't want to see any colleague in any college ever caught out for the want of asking a question - infringement is more easily monitored on the web and penalties can be severe - financial demands can be bad enough, it's more the loss of face, goodwill and reputation that will damage the perpetrator.

Have a great bonfire night - I'm delighted to say that our two grandchildren from America are with us at the moment and we have a very good, public fireworks display not five minutes from the house - the weather promises to be cold, but clear and we should have a great evening.

Regards to you all - please pass on the word about the blog and the Twitter account - let's get talking, sharing views and opinions and make sure that levels of copyright awareness are as high as possible.

Alan Rae
5 November 2012